New 3 News set launched tomorrow

The wait is finally over - the new ultra-modern 3 News set is to be unveiled on Monday 15th September, and I'm sure viewers aren't the only ones excited.

The old 3 News set was recreated in a smaller studio for presenters to read the news from over the past few weeks, however it was so small that sections including the weather, Campbell Live and Sunrise were filmed in other various areas of the building - including the loading bay.

Weather presenter Juliet McVeigh wrote in her TV3 blog that one night during the construction she was making her way back to the weather green screen from the part of the building Dobbo was presenting the sports from only to find herself locked between two roller doors.

The TV3 presenters will be happy to know that from tomorrow they will all be in the same room again. "We will have a big long continuous desk which all our presenters will sit at. We're not going to have different people in different parts of the studio; everybody will be at the same desk," says TV3's director of news and current affairs Mark Jennings. "We're moved away from what we have traditionally had... we have gone completely modern."

The new 3 News set is said to have cost around one million dollars, but Jennings says it will pay off as refreshing the look of the show is vital.

"The set is a factor in terms of your credibility. If you don't have the right people there it doesn't matter how much money you spend... But if you have the right team and put them in the right set it does have an impact on the ratings. We like to think of ourselves as a cutting edge news service ... we want to be seen as innovative and modern and this new set very much fits that image."

Media Fetish will have more on the new look when it is unveiled tomorrow.